Verbier, Courchevel or Chamonix: three very different Alpine weeks

These three get grouped together because they are expensive and famous. On the ground they are barely comparable, and picking between them on reputation rather than structure is how people end up in the wrong one.

Chamonix: a town that happens to have skiing

Chamonix is a year-round town at the foot of Mont Blanc, with a railway station, a hospital and a population that lives there. It is the birthplace of alpinism and it still behaves like it.

**The thing to know before booking:** the ski areas are not linked. Brevent-Flegere, Les Grands Montets, Le Tour and Les Houches are separate, spread along the valley and connected by bus rather than by lift. Against a linked domain that is a real disadvantage, and it is why some people do not come back.

What you get instead is terrain with genuine mountaineering character, the Aiguille du Midi cable car, and a town that is fully alive in August as well as February. Chamonix is the only one of the three where a summer trip makes as much sense as a winter one.

Courchevel: a stack, not a resort

Courchevel is four villages at four altitudes: 1300, 1550, 1650 and 1850. They have different characters and different price levels, and they all feed the Trois Vallees, which is the largest lift-linked ski area in the world by most definitions.

**The thing to know:** the skiing is identical from all four. What differs is the evening. 1850 has the shops and the altiport. 1650 is quieter with good access. 1550 and 1300 are further from the noise.

So the decision is not "should I go to Courchevel", it is "which altitude", and people routinely get that backwards.

Verbier: a shelf with a reputation

Verbier sits on a south-facing shelf above the Val de Bagnes and links into one of the largest areas in the Alps. Both halves of its reputation are earned: the off-piste is serious, and so is the late-night scene, and they draw quite different people into the same bars.

**The thing to know:** the terrain that made Verbier famous is not terrain to read off a piste map. It needs a guide and current conditions knowledge, and the avalanche exposure is real. Book the guide before you book anything else.

The village is a real village with a road through it rather than a purpose-built resort, which means character, and also that the walk home is uphill.

Which one, in one line each

- **You want the biggest linked skiing and do not care about the town.** Courchevel, and choose your altitude. - **You want serious off-piste and will hire a guide.** Verbier. - **You want the mountain more than the resort, or you might come in summer.** Chamonix. - **You are a first-time beginner.** None of these. All three are better once you can already ski.

What we are not going to tell you

What any of them costs. The previous version of this article quoted weekly chalet rates by resort and tier. Those numbers were not sourced and they have been removed. Chalet pricing moves by week, by property and by year, and a number in an article is worth less than a quote for your actual dates.